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Sunday, 22 December 2013

Day 7: Linzer/A Very Big Jam Tart

I began today with the best of intentions, hoping to end up with a beautiful linzer to proudly show off on here. I ended the morning with a peeved-off sulk in front of the Honey Boo Boo Christmas special. Safe to say, the recipe for this let me down (a good baker does blame the recipes because this one definitely wasn't my fault... Or so I tell myself). Nonetheless, it's still pretty tasty. My dad loves linzer, or anything with sugar, or jam, or pastry, or that's been in the oven, or that is edible... Basically, my dad's just a walking stream of approval for almost all food. Anyway, when my mum spotted the recipe in a magazine, we knew it had to be made.

Now, for the things I've learnt from making this, which may help you if you decide to make your own (which you definitely should unless you don't like jam, in which case get off my blog). Number 1: the recipe makes a huge quantity. I was planning on halving it, but we didn't have an adequately sized tin (and I secretly wanted more linzer). If you're making it for lots of people, that's fine, but it gets expensive when you're using so much butter and jam, so if it's just for a sweet treat/afternoon snack, halving it may be beneficial.

Number 2: I didn't leave enough pastry for the top. It says to set aside one third of the mix, but I think more is needed if you want to achieve the lattice effect. Number 3: stock up on jam - this may just be because my family love jam, but I found that the recipe definitely used too little jam, especially in relation to the amount of pastry - that would be one dry linzer. Alternatively, you could leave the pastry from the top and just make a giant jam tart. Due to not having enough for the top, half of mine is pretty much just a big jam tart - I'm not complaining (and neither is my dad).